Stellarium 0.15.1

[SonnyE]

4 hours ago, Dave In Vermont said:

"But I un-checked all of them before proceeding."

"All my settings remained intact - no problems. "

Enjoy -

Dave

Bingo Dave. All fixed here, now.

[SonnyE]

Alexander,

If I may bend your ear a bit more, Please... Everything it working tip-top with Stellarium here again. I reverted to 0.15.0 because I am most familiar with it, and I like it, immensely.

I've been working out a WiFi control problem today with my two computers to try and get a bug worked out. I think I have it done.

I have had my Desktop computer WiFi connected to my laptop running my mount outside. I put a simple bar in my mounts Vixen saddle for a visual indicator, and randomly chose Vega as a target. Over the hours, I've noticed that the telescope symbol in Stellarium, and my mount, seem to be tracking Vega religiously. I did not expect it to do that... Which leads to my question:

Without PHD2, or any other guiding program, is Stellarium capable of tracking the targeted Star or chosen target (Nebulae) of its own accord?

I use Stellarium during my Alignment Process as a visual aid, and PHD2 as my "Eyepiece" to center the alignment stars. (I have all my aiming devices as zeroed to each other as possible). But I've been in the middle of an alignment and been called away for one reason or another, and when I return I see that the targeted star is still in the same position in my view. The only explanation I can see is that Stellarium is guiding the mount to stay on the targeted star. Just as it has today following Vega. (Which I cannot see of course to verify because of the Sun.) I think I shall continue my WiFi experiment and Stellarium tracking into the evening here. Vega is now West of the Meridian (Post Meridian flip), so I should be able to replace my bar with my 80mm refractor.

But I wanted to ask about Stellarium as it appears it can track my mount in a selected target without additional guiding. So I wondered if it can track well enough to do imaging?

[alexwolf]

Telescope Control plugin can send "slew" command only, he can't run "sync" command. Of course you see on the screen marker of last target object or position for telescope. 

In general Telescope Control plugin should be upgraded, because it requires full implementation of communication protocols. And yes, we really want more developers, who can help us improve planetarium - for example Telescope Control plugin are not under active support, because we has no dedicated developer for his support.

[SonnyE]

3 minutes ago, alexwolf said:

Telescope Control plugin can send "slew" command only, he can't run "sync" command. Of course you see on the screen marker of last target object or position for telescope. 

In general Telescope Control plugin should be upgraded, because it requires full implementation of communication protocols. And yes, we really want more developers, who can help us improve planetarium - for example Telescope Control plugin are not under active support, because we has no dedicated developer for his support.

I don't know how much help I could be because I tend to bumble along and get places. My learning involves me getting my hands dirty, and not so much book work. Figuring out how to get a program to work for me is a matter of fine tuning the available finesses in it. Not writing it.

But long I have thought it would be nice to have Stellarium be able keep the telescope locked on the selected object. A guiding, or "sync" capability. But instead, I use Stellarium to get me there with the Telescope Control plug in, and when my main imaging camera is centered up, PHD2 guiding keeps me there.

Observing how Stellarium has kept my mount and telescope following an object while the Earth continues on its rotation shows me it is almost there for guiding, and if I was a visual observer instead of an imaging observer, it might well be fine for visual. Or from my standpoint it seems to be that close. It did drift off over time, but it kept my mount aimed generally at the selected object. (The drift I would suspect is due to alignment on my end, or the lack of fine guiding pulses to correct the drift, such as PHD2 performs.) Merely having Stellarium seek the targeted object put it back on center. But that wasn't something needed often. In lew of having it automatic, what if a 'Hot Key' could perform the "Slew telescope to", "Current Object" and "Slew" functions with a single click? Therefore snapping the drift out and re-centering the aim point.

Now that I about have my fill of imaging with PHD2 guiding for tonight, I think I'll try letting Stellarium run the telescope and do a run of timed (sequenced) images to see how much it actually drifts with my current alignment. Kind of like a time lapse set of images.

There, it's running. Should come out of the oven in 1 Hr and 5 minutes. 60 each, 60 second images with buffering for storage.

[dyfiastro]

Has the issue with Windows 10 64bit been solved as I have just upgraded this evening and got the same issues.

[Dr_Ju_ju]

What issues are you having ? as I'm running it on multiple PC's, all Win 10 64bit.

[RayD]

I've installed it on a W10 Pro machine (x64) with no issues at all.  As noted above, just uncheck all the boxes when installing over the older version and it will keep your config files.

[dyfiastro]

The same as the first few people had. It will run fine and then just crash out.
I have narrowed it down to possibly the stellarium oculars plugin which is coursing the issue as it crashes out as soon as I try and use it.

Going to attempt another reinstall tonight and see if that helps.

[alexwolf]

12 hours ago, dyfiastro said:

The same as the first few people had. It will run fine and then just crash out.
I have narrowed it down to possibly the stellarium oculars plugin which is coursing the issue as it crashes out as soon as I try and use it.

Going to attempt another reinstall tonight and see if that helps.

Please try remove stars_4_1v0_1.cat file (He is located in C:\Users\<Login>\AppData\Roaming\Stellarium\stars\default\). And I recommend to use 0.15.1.1.

[dyfiastro]

3 hours ago, alexwolf said:

Please try remove stars_4_1v0_1.cat file (He is located in C:\Users\<Login>\AppData\Roaming\Stellarium\stars\default\). And I recommend to use 0.15.1.1.

Thanks for the reply.

I got it working last night I think.

After clearing the stellarium folder in the appears\roaming folder I reinstalled and everything seems fine.

I will  try 0.15.1.1. I must say the version has some fantastic updates, thankyou